Tesla Revisited -- And 2011 EV Conversion Workshops Confirmed

So here are those promised photos of Jenny in the Tesla -- one very nice look at the car (with representative Michael Sexton dancing out of the shot), and one featuring my great big EV grin (which is what it's all about)!  

Thank you to Melissa, the lovely event coordinator at the Centre Bridge Inn in Stockton NJ, for documenting the moment -- and now I can finally catch you up on the other BCR news from last week.  

 2011 EV CONVERSION WORKSHOP DATES CONFIRMED

March 26, 2011

One Day Mini-Workshop 

at the Green Jobs Academy in Bristol, PA

9 a.m. - 1 p.m. 

Registration Open Now through Bucks County Community College

Click Here to go to Course Description

 July 25-30, 2011

Six-Day Hands-on EV Conversion Workshop

co-sponsored by the Green Jobs Academy

to be held at Middle Bucks Institute of Technology

Jamison, PA

  To receive an announcement when registration opens for the July workshop, click here

Oh man -- what an exciting visit I had to MBIT.  Back in 2006 when I was first calling around looking for a space to host the 2007 workshop, I spoke to the then-Administrative Director of this very facility.  He was very interested in the project, but at the very end of our phone conversation he confessed that their auto bays were scheduled for renovation during the summer of 2007 and would not be available.

The fully-renovated auto labs are very impressive.  There is a welding booth right in the shop, a fully-wired classroom, and state-of-the-art automotive tools.  Both Rich Hansen, their Facilities Manager, and Nancy Messick, the Director of Adult Education,  are very enthusiastic about hosting our workshop, and I was thrilled to learn that MBIT is in the process of building a solar farm on its property. Rich seemed pleased that I was excited about this, and justifiably proud of their efforts so far.  

This week he will attend the final zoning meeting to sign off on the new solar zoning ordinance which was required.  The township initially resisted the plan on the grounds that solar panels would constitute '"impervious surface" (as if the school were proposing building a parking lot).   This made me laugh pretty hard, especially when Rich said that he had to explain to them that it was more like a few thousand people holding umbrellas on a football field.  Yes, the rain will still hit the ground, yeesh!  

MBIT is the only high school in the country that is a member of the Green Building Council.  You can bet that I talked up the electric-cars-and-solar-power-go-great-together concept pretty fervently.  I'm a little excited, can you tell?